Summer Nights at the Moonlight Hotel (26 page)

I sit in the corner, listening intently as she attempts to deal with the aftermath of her statement that, ‘Chefs say you can put almost anything in a paella.’ This led to a dozen
hands shooting up in the air, and the children testing out alternatives such as, ‘what about ice cream?’ or ‘chocolate cake?’ or, my particular favourite, ‘a
football?’.

While this chaos goes on about me, Edwin keeps trying to catch my eye. Sometimes the pressure becomes too much to bear and I’ll briefly look up, for him to flash me a smile I can only
describe as
saucy
.

‘You must be an absolute demon in bed,’ Cate sniggers, as I fill her in that night.

‘Please don’t even joke about it,’ I say, sipping water. Which is all I am going to sip ever again, for the rest of my life. ‘I have no idea what went on between those
sheets. From the way he looked at me in the morning, you’d think it had involved a black negligée and nipple tassels. Which it didn’t, to be clear.’

‘You saving those for the second time?’

All I can do is wince.

Cate narrows her eyes. ‘So, was it good? You must recall an overall impression. You’ve been dreaming about it for bloody years so by rights it should’ve been off the
scale.’

‘I honestly do not know,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘I can’t remember.’

‘Is that why your feelings for Edwin have changed?’

My head snaps up. ‘What makes you think that?’

She shrugs. ‘I was just getting that impression. Sorry – I’m obviously wrong.’

‘The date would have been wonderful, had I been conscious. I realise this sort of conundrum is all alien to you, given how well things are going with Will. I’ve barely seen you in
the last couple of weeks.’

‘Sorry,’ she says sheepishly.

‘Don’t be silly, I’m over the moon for you.’

‘Thanks, Lauren,’ she smiles. ‘So how’s your Singapore planning?’

‘Fine. I handed my notice in on the cottage last week,’ I tell her, though just saying it makes a bead of sweat appear on my brow. ‘I feel awful about letting my cousin Steph
down though. I haven’t even heard from her since I told her I’m not going to Australia.’

‘Hasn’t she posted one of her infamous updates on Facebook lately?’

‘I don’t know, now you mention it,’ I reply, taking out my phone and clicking on the app.

I can see nothing from Steph though – just the standard Facebook guff I find so enticing: birthday wishes, wedding photos, new babies, humblebrags and rants. Plus one from my mum, who
seems to think that if she writes,
Hi Dawn, did you get the washing machine fixed?
on her own wall that Dawn, whoever she is, will mystically pick up the message by the
sheer cosmic force of the internet.

‘My mother should be kept away from technology,’ I sigh, as Cate reaches to the windowsill to turn the radio on. The song playing is ‘Sweet Disposition’ by the Temper
Trap and it has the instantaneous effect of making her tap her feet as she finishes the washing-up, sunlight sheering on to her face as she sings, lost in the words.

And it’s then, when I glance back at my phone, that I’m confronted by the picture. Not
the
picture – another one.

‘Lauren?’ Cate asks, but it takes a moment for me to register her voice. ‘I was just saying I saw Stella for her final meeting and . . . what’s the matter?’

The words stick in my mouth. But as it turns out, she doesn’t need me to spell them out. She knows even before she’s looked. She races over and takes the phone to glare at the photo
that’s been posted direct on her Facebook page – bewilderingly, from her
own
account.

This time she’s in a kitchen. She’s facing the camera directly, the hint of a smile on her lips as she lifts up her top to provide the sort of eyeful usually reserved for page 3 of
the
Daily Star
.

She doesn’t even say anything when she sees it. She just takes a slug of breath, deletes it – then slumps on to a kitchen chair and starts crying. I sink into the seat next to her
and slide my arm round her, as her shoulders begin to shudder.

‘It hadn’t been on there long so very few people will have seen it,’ I offer, though not with much conviction given that she has over 300 Facebook friends and that it had been
there for twenty minutes.

Nobody had commented on it, nobody had liked it, nobody had presumably done anything but stare in disbelief – and possibly report it, although enough time clearly hadn’t elapsed
before Facebook got on the case.

Cate’s phone starts ringing on the table in front of us, and Will’s name flashes up on the screen. She grabs it and turns it off.

‘How could it have been on
your
profile?’ I ask.

‘I don’t know.’ She looks at me, terror in her eyes, her face red and wet from crying. ‘I’m on Facebook with all my friends and all my family, as well as half the
town. And . . . and Will.’

‘He probably hasn’t seen it,’ I comfort her.

‘I’m sure someone will fill him in,’ she sobs.

‘Cate, I think you need to go to the police about this,’ I tell her firmly.

She looks up with frenzied eyes. ‘But – but Will’s brother – the humiliation . . . I’d feel like such an idiot and a slag. And what if it went to court and all the
other
photos were used as evidence?’ It’s clear this suggestion has sent her into an unstoppable panic. ‘What the hell am I going to do?’

‘It’s going to be all right,’ I whisper.

But as I pull her into me, her body trembling in my arms, it’s hard to understand how.

The next twenty-four hours are a slow kind of torture. I spend the day at work getting texts from Cate, who tells me that
everyone
knows. I have no idea whether
she’s exaggerating but I suspect so, as the number of people on Facebook who will have actually seen the picture is minimal and, while gossip of any kind tends to spread like wildfire around
here, I can’t – or perhaps don’t want to – accept it’s as bad as she says. But then, I’m not in her shoes. And I’m sure it feels bad. I’m sure it
feels worse than I can possibly imagine.

When the school bell rings and the children are safely deposited back with their parents, I leap into my car and head straight over to Cate’s place. Daffodils & Stars is shut and she
answers the door of her flat looking like death warmed up.

‘It’s everywhere,’ she hisses.

‘I’m sure that’s not the case,’ I say lamely.

‘I went outside to fix some of the displays and heard two customers sitting outside the coffee shop next door talking about it. I couldn’t believe it – I didn’t even know
them! You know when you overhear part of a conversation and think it must be about someone else . . . only it’s not. I worked out how Robby could have done this too.’

‘Oh?’

‘He knew my password. It was the same one as for my emails – and I gave that to him once to check something for me when my phone wasn’t working.’

I sigh. ‘Have you seen Will since it happened?’

Will, we discovered from one of his texts, saw the picture with his own eyes, about a minute before Cate deleted it. She had dozens of missed calls from him by the time I left yesterday, but in
the end he clearly gave up.

‘Have you returned any of his calls yet?’

She shakes her head. ‘No. And he’s stopped ringing anyway.’

‘Cate, you should speak to him,’ I tell her.

‘What am I going to say? “Did you like my home-made porn collection? Because there are more where that came from!”’

I frown. ‘You should at least text him back.’

‘Oh, what’s the point! He’s not phoning any longer, Lauren. He doesn’t want anything to do with me. Why would he?’

‘Well, because it’s not your fault!’ I reply furiously. ‘And because he loves you! And because if he’s a man worth his salt, he won’t care about your past and
will understand that you’re a victim here and—’

I’m interrupted from my rant by the ring of her doorbell. She looks up, her lip trembling.

‘Do you want me to get it?’

She nods. ‘Promise you’ll just get rid of whoever it is though? If it’s Will, I can’t face him. Make my excuses will you?’

I head to the door and open it to find Cate’s mum, Liz. I feel instantly relieved. Cate and her mum have never been especially close, but I know that if there’s one thing
that’s going to get a girl through this, it’s having her best friend and her mum by her side.

‘I take it she’s in?’ asks Liz. She’s dressed in a smart pair of trousers and a cashmere throw, her short blonde hair swept softly out of her blue eyes. She looks upset,
which is understandable.

‘In the living room, Liz,’ I say, closing the door as she walks ahead of me. ‘It’s just horrendous what’s happened, isn’t it?’

Liz turns to me and replies starkly: ‘Yes. It is.’

Cate is curled up on the sofa, her cheeks streaked with more tears. She sits up when her mother enters and for a moment neither of them say a thing.

‘Mum . . . I’m so sorry,’ Cate eventually whimpers.

It takes a second for me to realise that Liz’s eyes are not filled with the sympathy and maternal love that I’d anticipated. Disgust is apparent in the tightening of her lips. When
she speaks, it’s quiet and low – the whisper of a woman who considers herself scorned.

‘I did everything I could to bring you up right, Catherine. I gave you everything a parent could be expected to. And your father and I are rewarded with
this
.’

Cate’s face crumples. ‘This isn’t about you, Mum.’

‘Oh, isn’t it?’ Anger radiates from the woman in thick waves. ‘You think that when I have to walk into work tomorrow and face my colleagues that this doesn’t affect
me? You don’t think that the fact that my neighbour has seen my daughter’s body, flaunted about like some prostitute . . . you don’t think that affects me? You don’t think
it’s about
me
when I’m the one who has to explain to your Great-Aunt Edith why everyone’s gossiping, or to little Ellen why Aunty Cate – whom she loved and looked
up to – is all over the internet with her clothes off?’

‘Mum, I just didn’t think—’

‘
That’s
your problem, Catherine. You have a rush of blood to the head and you
don’t think
.’

Cate seems to shrink into herself. ‘You’re right – you’re totally right. I’m so sorry, Mum. I just don’t know what to say.’

‘Neither do I,’ says Liz, clutching her bag to her chest. ‘All I know is that I’m having to come to terms with something I never dreamed was the case.’

‘Come to terms with what?’

She glares at Cate with hard eyes. ‘The fact that my daughter is a dirty slut.’

It is no surprise that Cate doesn’t come to salsa, given that she currently refuses to eat, sleep or move from her flat. But she’s not the only one avoiding the
place. I get a text from Stella as I’m almost at the door of Casa Lagos.
Not coming tonight. Trying to work a few things out. x

I stop walking and compose a reply.
Hope everything’s OK? x

The second I’ve pressed Send, my phone rings and Stella already seems to be talking, clearly desperate to get a few things off her chest.

‘The answer to that question is
not exactly
,’ she breathes. ‘I found a text on Mike’s phone yesterday. I know who he’s been meeting.’

‘Who?’

‘
Lulu
. The text was as clear as day:
Hi darlin! See you at 8pm tonight – usual place?.
Then
xxx.
Three kisses. Not one
but THREE.’

‘Lulu?’ I repeat, incredulously. ‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m certain – I confronted him about it and he came out with some crap about one of his colleagues wanting to start a dance class, and him meeting Lulu to put them in touch.
It was absolute bollocks. I just don’t believe him.’

It’s been months since Mike came to the salsa class, but now I think about it I can’t deny that Lulu did seem to be giving him special treatment; I said to Cate at the time that
she’d taken a shine to him. I never thought for a moment that there could have been more to it than that – but I must admit I’m at a loss to explain the text.

‘So . . . where does that leave you?’ I ask.

‘With the wedding, you mean? Good question. Am I really going to marry a big fat cheating liar?’

‘Oh, Stella . . .’

‘I don’t know what to do, Lauren,’ she goes on, the words catching at the back of her throat. ‘All I know right now is that I can’t be there tonight, otherwise I
might walk over and punch Lulu bloody Mitford in her pretty little face.’ I hear a door slam. ‘I need to go. Can I phone you this week?’

‘Of course. In fact, come over if you want someone to have a glass of wine with,’ I reply, despite feeling less than qualified to be an agony aunt for Stella or anyone else.

‘I might,’ she says hastily. ‘Thanks, Lauren.’

When the call ends, I push open the door of the restaurant and see Will and Joe on the other side of the room, chatting to Andi and Luke. Will looks up, spots me and marches over, his face full
of questions.

‘Is Cate coming tonight?’ he asks.

‘No, I don’t think so. She’s having a bad time of it,’ I reply. His jaw clenches. ‘I believe you know about the picture.’ It’s not a question.

‘I think everyone does, don’t they?’ he says stiffly.

‘Will, it’s awful. It was her ex-boyfriend Robby who posted the picture. He hacked into her Facebook account.’ This is clearly news to Will. ‘She’s extremely upset
and feels totally humiliated. I’m sure if you gave her a call and—’

‘Lauren,’ he interrupts. ‘I’ve tried to phone her a dozen times and got no response. Nor from my texts either.’

I lower my eyes. ‘Yes, I know. She’s in a bad way and . . .’ My sentence trails off as I look around and realise that we’re receiving some attention. It’s not
obvious, just the odd lowered voice, or shifty glance. People
are
talking about Cate. And, in the absence of Cate herself, the focus of that attention is her best friend and her
boyfriend.

‘Marion’s looking like she’s going to put us through our paces tonight,’ Joe says, appearing next to us, mercifully diffusing the tension. ‘She’s limbering up
as if she’s about to run a 1500-metre race.’